DLP Week 2 Is Finished...

The art challenge for week two of DLP was to use gesso and the journal prompt was the quote "The beginning is always today" by Mary Shelley.

As is so often the case, I got busy having fun and forgot that I wanted to capture pictures of the process for those of you who requested seeing them.  This first image has several layers of found papers, pretty napkins (serviettes...or whatever you call them), and paint, applied with my fingers.

I then used a fun spiral stencil and dabbed on white gesso with a make-up sponge.





More paint was added to soften the contrast and then I added some subtle finger painted circles.

 Using a couple of different sizes of paint brushes I added more circles. I also traced along some of those wonderful spiral shapes with a black marker and added black dots to create a bit of a swirly border for the page.

More circles...

Haha...more circles in the form of bubble wrap...

And finally, some big bold text.  I chose to use a different quote with a similar theme.

I added some more white, using my favourite white pen (Signo) to highlight the text and I'm calling it done.

It's pretty busy, but I love all the layers.

Fortune Cookie Bag

A while ago I saw a tutorial for a cute little 'fortune cookie bag' on Claude Larson's blog.  Since I had so much fun with the Angie Hughes technique I used for the journal cover I recently made, I thought I'd use it for this bag.

I started with some lace I had, layering it over the cotton foundation.  The circles were cut from a bit of a J-cloth that I had  on my work table.

Some yarn was machine couched around the edge of the circles and then I did some free motion stitching all over the piece.

The next step was to paint on some gesso to seal the layers and ready it for painting.

I've used a metallic copper colour for the circles and then painted the rest with turquoise and a little purple.

Once the paint dries I'll be able to start putting the bag together.  I'll show you the finished bag in a couple of days.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Adding Stitch...

Adding texture with machine stitch

Last week I posted about Angie Hughes' book and showed you the first stages in the piece I've started based on her technique.  So much for putting it out in the sun to dry faster...LOL...I've been juggling several projects and while that was drying I got busy with something else.  I finally got back to it to add the machine stitch, giving the piece even more texture.

Long threads created with 'jump stitch'

Angie uses a stitch she calls a 'jump stitch' in which you set the machine for free motion stitch, do a few stitches in place and then 'jump' to another spot, leaving long threads between the areas you're tacking down.  After the stitching was done gesso was painted onto the entire surface to seal the piece, getting it ready for the acrylic paint. Time to let it dry again so I'll pick up another ongoing piece and continue on this another day.

Breaking News

I'm sorry to say that computer gremlins have reeked havoc on some of the images on my blog and I have not been able to correct the problem.  In this case, the process shots are missing, but I was able to restore the image of the finished piece, and some close ups of the stitching which are at the end of the post.

No, I don't have anything particularly exciting to report other than I've finished a piece I've been working on rather extensively over the last few weeks.  'Breaking News' is the title of my newest mixed media piece.  It started with a cup of tea...

Last summer Doeteke, a friend of mine, was saving tea bags to use in her art and as I was drinking a cup of tea a couple of months ago I remembered this fact and started to save my own tea bags.  Then,  in April, Heather presented our GOE group with a challenge that involved using newspaper and the wheels started turning.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

My first idea was to create a collage using wine labels and an article in the newspaper that talked about Copula's vineyards in California.  I decided to get my colour palette from the tea bags: mostly browns with some reds (from the herbal fruit teas).  I started with a piece of muslin, some acrylic paints mixed with gesso (thanks to something Leah, another friend and member of GOE, had said about a piece she was experimenting with) and my old driver's license, which I used to apply the paint.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't 
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

My next step was to use some matte medium to collage the wine labels (searched on-line and printed 'cause I just don't drink enough. LOL) and newspaper pieces (torn from the article mentioned above).  I then layered on some random pieces of hand-dyed cheese cloth to give it more texture.  So far it was going nowhere and I was feeling discouraged.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't 
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

I pulled out more paint, this time adding various metallics in coppers and golds as well as the original colours I had started with.  I also collaged some of the tea bags on at this point to try to get more of a subtle effect with the wine labels.  The tea bags are great for this because they have some opacity to them.  I was beginning to see hope at this point.  Ironically however, the more paint I added the less of the underlying collage I could see.

I have also been experimenting with rust dying lately and thought that some of the rust dyed fabric would work well on this piece.

Sorry this image has gone missing and I can't 
restore it...computer gremlins reeking havoc!

I cut several random circular pieces (freehand so they wouldn't be perfect), and I started laying them on top of the painted piece, auditioning their placement.  I settled on a gentle curved path that rose up from centre left and then curved down toward the bottom right corner.  The piece was looking too monochromatic at this point so I added some bits of a sheer black fabric to break it up a little.

I then grabbed a paint brush and some white paint to give it some pops of accent colour.  I started by painted the three circles near the centre left and then I created another random pathway, using straight lines and adding a few square shapes.  I also did some stamping using an old potato masher.  As I was adding the white I was sort of wishing I hadn't because it was just too glaringly bright.  

Seeing as the paint had for the most part obscured the newspaper and wine labels, I wanted to bring in some more newsprint (Remember the GOE challenge!) so I started tearing narrow strips and collaged them overtop of my white painted lines.    It was perfect to knock back the starkness while still keeping some accent.  A few more teabags were collaged over the potato masher stamps to knock them back a bit too.  By the way, at this point, the vineyard article was long gone and I was using newspaper from the front page of the paper.  That's when the name of the piece came to me.  Breaking news.  I was literally breaking (or tearing) news stories, and I was seeing words about killings, blood, etc.  That and the random areas of red paint, the footprints (or are they finger prints?) created by the potato masher stampings, and I began noticing 'evidence' appearing as if at a crime scene.

The next step was to layer it with batting and a backing and take it to the sewing machine for literally hours of intensive thread sketching/quilting.  I used a coppery red colour thread to highlight some of what I now saw as blood stains, as well as doing the pebbling effect on the rust dyed circles for some added texture.  A gold thread was used to bring out some of the areas that had been painted with the metallic paints, and the rest was stitched with a subtle taupe colour to create texture while at the same time pushing those areas back a bit.

Here are a few close up photos showing the stitching.  Click on them to enlarge, if desired.

And finally, here again is the finished piece, trimmed and ready for hanging.  I photographed it on a black background so that you can more easily see the shape of the finished piece.

Altered Book / Journal

An old credit card was used to scrape
the paint.  Also added tissue tape in a
long strip and short pieces (these had
a calendar on them).

A while back I started playing with the idea of altering a book to make a journal.  My first obstacle was to overcome my horror of defacing a book.  Having said that, I decided that using an old hardcover (fiction) picked up at Wastewise (a wonderful recycling depot in town) wouldn't be too terrible (unless of course you are the author, in which case I give you my sincere apologies).

The first step was to remove some of the pages (randomly throughout the book - not all from one section) to allow for the added bulk that the paint would add.   I then glued together 3 pages at a time and stitched around the edges using a zigzag stitch on my sewing machine.  You can get to within about 1 1/2 - 2 inches from the binding.  This gives you good sturdy pages with which to work.

Brick pattern was created using a stencil.  

Circles (look like page reinforcers) were

made using the wooded handle of an old

foam brush (remove the foam and plastic

part and you're left with a short dowel 

with a hole in it!

The next part was the hardest for me because it required a lot of time and patience.  I covered each page with gesso, but because you don't want the pages to stick together you have to wait for each spread to dry before you can go on to the next.  At this stage I used a light covering of white gesso, allowing some of the original text to show through.

Stamping was done using rubber
stamps with acrylic paint. 

Inktense pencils give wonderfully
vibrant colour.

Now the fun begins.  Using acrylic paint, Inktense watercolour pencils, markers (I like Copic markers), white gel pens, black gesso, etc. I began to play.  Again this takes patience because you have to wait for pages to dry before you go on to the next spread or before you can begin to journal on the fun backgrounds that you've created.

Background ready for some sketching 

and journaling.

I love using white printing on the black gesso for a change of pace.  I really like the effect.  (Note: I found my white gel pen worked much better on the black gesso than it did on black acrylic paint.  I also like the more matte finish of the gesso.

Markers were used to colour in some 

doodles on this page.